About

The Crisis Response Fund (CRF) provides urgent funding to civil society actors who are:

  1. Facing crises in freedom of assembly and association to conduct advocacy activities, or
  2. Looking to respond proactively to threats to civic freedoms through resiliency activities.

The CRF provides funding for either advocacy or resiliency grants for 3-6 months for civil society actors, for up to US$10000.00 (for individual applicants) and US$20000.00 (for two or more applicants).

The Fund is part of the Lifeline Embattled CSO Fund.

Learn More About The CRF below

Criteria to apply

The CRF welcomes applications from formal or informal civil society actors and consortia, including social movements. Grants must be for a 3-6 month period and include a budget of roughly US$10000.00 for individual organizations; or US$20000.00 for two or more co-applying organizations.

  1. For advocacy grants: partners must demonstrate that proposed activities respond to an urgent threat to freedom of assembly and association (FoAA) and that partners included as beneficiaries of the project are at high risk in exercising their rights to these freedoms. Examples of activities include:
    1. Advocacy meetings and workshops to respond to restrictive laws governing FoAA and lobbying policymakers and key actors to amend restrictions.
    2. Conducting counter-narrative campaigns to respond to smear campaigns against civil society.
    3. Harnessing opportunities in multilateral fora, like the United Nations, to put pressure on governments to uphold FoAA.
  1. For resiliency grants: partners must demonstrate that the proposed activities enhance the security and resiliency of the applying partners, who would be at imminent risk from their human rights work. Examples of activities include:
    1. Providing digital and physical security audits and trainings.
    2. Providing psychosocial interventions for civil society actors at risk.
    3. Preemptively creating a strategy to respond to the threat of restrictions on access to foreign funding for civil society.

Interested in Applying?

  1. First, read through our protocols and rules governing the grant.
  2. Secondly, take our short qualifying quiz to see if you are eligible to receive funding (responses are not recorded).
  3. Thirdly, download our application pack to prepare your submission.
  4. Lastly, submit your application via our online application portal.

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